In Jimenez v. Roseville City School District, published May 19, 2016, the Third District Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment in favor of the defendant school district in a lawsuit brought by a middle-school student injured while practicing break dancing. A teacher allowed a group of middle-school students to use his classroom for the breakdancing practice. He did not know that school authorities had recently witnessed students doing flips on campus, and that a vice principal had forbidden students from performing flips. He did not know that the students practicing breakdancing would perform flips. The injured student had not danced before, and wanted to learn how to dance. During the practice, the teacher left the room. While he was gone, a student flipped the plaintiff, and he was injured. Evidence conflicted on whether flipping was an inherent part of breakdancing. The trial court concluded that flipping was an inherent risk of breakdancing, and that by participating the student assumed the risk of the injury.
The appellate court concluded that the evidence indicated two viable theories of liability. One was that the teacher negligently supervised the students, by leaving them unsupervised (in violation of school policy) while they practiced; and that the school's failure to communicate to him that students were flipping and that there was a rule against it contributed to the incident. Schools should not allow children to congregate unsupervised in classrooms to engage in physical activities that can easily spiral into dangerous activities. The second was that the district increased the risks inherent in break dancing. The evidence on whether flipping was an inherent part of breakdancing conflicted. Even if a jury found that the school's supervision was generally adequate, it could conclude that failing to regulate the students' flipping increased the risk beyond that the student assumed by participating in the practice.
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